Sci-Fi novels

[Anonymous No.5925406]

What are your favourite Sci-Fi novels?
Mine are The Martian Chronicles and Rendezvous with Rama.

[Anonymous No.5925488]

Rendezvous with Rama.. rama.. ramaganna work here anymore anyway

[Anonymous No.5925517]

>>5925406
Neuromancer

[Anonymous No.5925525]

>>5925406
I've never read Sci-Fi

[Anonymous No.5925527]

>>5925525
pleb detected.

[Anonymous No.5925534]

Bumping cause I'm interested and I need suggestions

[Anonymous No.5925545]

>>5925406
I'm not really a sci-fi person but Asimov's Foundation Trilogy really is amazing

[Anonymous No.5925546]

>>5925488
lol

[Anonymous No.5925557]

The Deep by John Crowley
Book of the New Sun
Soon I Will Be Invincible
Diamond Age
Lord of Light

[Anonymous No.5925575]

>>5925527
At school was a nerd thing (I didn't want to become like one of those teen Asimov's fans who jerks off on star trek).
So I grew up with almost only the greeks and pre 900 litterature. After graduation I not even feel the appeal of sci-fi, there are still too much pre ww1 good books to read.

[Anonymous No.5925620]

>ctrl+f
>Hyperion
>0 results
Hyperion

[Anonymous No.5925631]

Out of the Mouth of the Dragon
The Gods Themselves
The Void Captain's Tale
Deathstalker series
Faded Sun Trilogy

[Anonymous No.5925638]

Can anyone recommend a Sci Fi book about interstellar travel (or any space travel) with a rather
realistic/serious plot?

By realistic I don't mean that the plot has to be possible scientifically, but not as "childish" as Martian Chronicles for example, alien races for example would not be "unrealistic" but they shouldn't be depicted as in The Martian Chronicles.

I'm looking for something good (and realistic) such as 2001 and 2010.

Anyone please?

[Anonymous No.5925687]

childhood's end

that fucking ending man...

[Anonymous No.5925704]

>>5925406
The Diamond Age

I used to love hard scifi only, and in high school one of my favorite books was Smoke Ring by Larry Niven, until my friend so kindly pointed out that the books I liked were shit

[Anonymous No.5925711]

>>5925638
You're probably looking for what's called Hard science fiction.

[Anonymous No.5925735]

>>5925711
Yep, not all of them though. The Diamond Age and similar books for example aren't what I'm looking for.

[Anonymous No.5925776]

>>5925620
A mixed bag of novellas and a bad framing narrative.

[Anonymous No.5925807]

Roadside Picnic is my all time favorite. I was told if I really want to get into contemporary sci-fi, I should read Dune.

[Anonymous No.5925995]

>>5925620
>shit series
>good

>>5925638
Revelation Space may fit your fancy.

[Anonymous No.5926024]

>>5925687
read this as a kid by it's stuck with me since. totally changed my ignorant athiestic views at the time

[Anonymous No.5926041]

I'm liking the Revelation Space novels so far.

Thinking of reading either one in pic or The Quantum Thief trilogy next.

[Anonymous No.5926054]

>>5925620
>ctr+f
>fewer than 10 posts in thread at the time
you fucking pleb

[Anonymous No.5926084]

Old mans war
Gateway
Levithan wakes
Forever war

[Anonymous No.5926135]

Two that instantly spring to mind, that aren't drawn from the font of the popular go-tos, are Permutation City and The Martian.

Permutation City by Greg Egan is hard sci-fi, a rather dark and haunting take on uploading your brain to a server so you can live forever. This book sticks with me years afterwards due to it really getting into what sci-fi is all about: Not lasers or spaceships, but the big "what if?" questions.

The Martian is a new book by a new author, and is really hard sci-fi. As in it could all happen with current technology (as far as I understand it). It's about a man who gets stranded on Mars. The story is told as a series of diary entries, by a sarcastic and witty mission specialist who's trying to survive on Mars and figure out a way to get home alive. It delves into measurements and numbers and builds tension by explaining how many liters of oxygen is left and how many hours the battery will last and approaching everything with an engineering mindset. It really shows that the author did his homework on this one.

It's not necessarily one of my favourites, but it's great in that way some of Michael Crichton's best work is, except it actually has likable characters! And it's my most recent sc-fi read so there's that. Apparently there's talks of a movie, and I'd love to see the main guy out of Moon playing the lead. He seems like he could pull off an endearing, witty, NASA engineer character.

[Anonymous No.5926142]

>>5926135
pleb

[Anonymous No.5926152]

sup

[Anonymous No.5926181]

>>5926142
Yep. The first novel I remember reading was The Hobbit. My bookshelf is filled with Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. I'm a mega-pleb :)

To be more on point with the OP, I think my favourite sci-fi is probably I, Robot. I loved the logical puzzles to be solved in each story. I don't know of any other book that does anything like that.

But fuck the film. it can choke on my positronic dick.

[Anonymous No.5926192]

>>5926084
Your taste in books is terrible.

[Anonymous No.5926197]

>>5926192
>reading sci-fi at all
even plebs have their own little hierarchy, so cute

[Anonymous No.5926211]

>>5926197
Let me present you with the nerd totem pole (incomplete, please add and amend where necessary):

>Sci Fi movie goers
>People who play computer games sometimes
>Sci Fi readers
>People who play computers games too much (/v/ types)
>P&P RPG grognards
>LARPers
>Furries

There's a natural order to things. We live in a world where the D&D nerd is cooler than someone else, and boy is he gonna let them know about it!

[Anonymous No.5926233]

Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis. Beautiful sci-fi dystopian novel. It has been my favorite book for as long as I can remember.

[Anonymous No.5926268]

>>5926135
The Martian is great and all naysayers are haters of fun.

[Anonymous No.5926271]

The Vorkosigan saga

[Anonymous No.5926288]

>>5926268
I've seen it to be pretty divisive. I wonder if it appeals to an engineering mindset specifically? I'm a software developer, and the friend who recommended it to me repairs computers. Not much to go on, but I can certainly see how someone might not like the constant back-of-the-envelope calculations he was doing to check if a plan was viable or not. I loved that problem solving, and was amazed by how simply rattling off numbers that didn't quite reach the total required built suspense.

[Anonymous No.5926547]

Solaris

[Anonymous No.5926563]

Le Guin - The Dispossessed
Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others (a short story collection, but a very good one)

and some Vonnegut and Pynchon if they count

[Anonymous No.5926590]

>>5925776
2/10
>>5925995
>only suggested Hyperion
>wouldn't recommend Endymion to my worst enemy
>>5926054
>being this mad.

[Anonymous No.5926796]

Solaris
The Ugly Swans
Beetle in the Anthill
Pulaster
Childhood's End

[Anonymous No.5926836]

>>5926563

>that good book feel

My suggestions for the thread are:

Helliconia - Aldiss
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Wilhelm

[Anonymous No.5926879]

>>5925406
I, Robot
End of Eternity
Childhood End
Ubik
Journey to the Center of the Earth

[Anonymous No.5927151]

>>5926590
>2/10
That's a bit harsh, I'd give Hyperion a 5/10.

[Anonymous No.5927154]

>>5925406
Book Of The New Sun, 5th Head of Cerberus, Man in the High Castle, A Scaner Darkly, Ubik would be my favourite.

[Anonymous No.5927159]

>>5925620
It's really a mixed bag of good and bad stuff now when I look back at it. I'd probably hate it if I read it now, I was 14 when I did.

[Anonymous No.5927161]

>>5926084
Only read OMW and that was some shit. It's one of the worst books I've read in the past 4 years and I've read a few Warhammer novels that were a masterpiece compared to it.

[Anonymous No.5927163]

Does Ballard count as sci-fi? I've read Millenium People and currently reading High Rise, it's brilliant.

[Anonymous No.5927174]

>>5926135
Go back to reddit.

[Anonymous No.5927299]

>>5926197
I find it funny how somebody can be so ignorant and say that all of Sci-Fi is irrelevant/stupid or whatever this guy wanted to say.
But then again, what else to expect on /lit/ , where everybody is a philosopher or author as soon as they have read some Camus or because they have written 5 pages of shit.

It fucking annoys me how most people on /lit/ are so compulsively trying to be non-main stream or non-pleb. Of course I'm not going to read some stupid books, that won't bring me anywhere, but you can get so much joy from just enjoying a good plot from a Sci-Fi novel or Eco-novels e.g..

Also, if you really were that fucking literate Übermenschen, would you really still visit 4chan?

[Anonymous No.5927370]

>>5927299
We call those shitposters, anon. They exist in many forms throughout each and every board on this website we are all apart of.

Responding to them only provides them with justification and encourages their behavior.

Stop replying to them indefinitely, friend.

[Anonymous No.5927542]

>>5926135
The film is being directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon.

[Anonymous No.5927639]

>>5925807
>Roadside Picnic

Outstanding choice, anon. I agree.

[Anonymous No.5927791]

>>5927174
Do you know where one of the author's short stories first gained prominence? It's just a little over to the right.

[Anonymous No.5927815]

>>5925406
The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

[Anonymous No.5927865]

Asimov - the original Foundation trilogy and The Gods Themselves
every Ballard novel of the apocalyptic era, particularly The Drought

[Anonymous No.5929027]

>>5925575

>didn't want to be a nerd
>reads greek literature instead

Boy, I got news for you.

[Anonymous No.5929065]

>>5927159
I read it at 25. I hated it.

[Anonymous No.5929067]

>>5927163
Yes and no. He defined it as neural geometry, and dealt with the inner space of the mind and visions of the near future

[Anonymous No.5929188]

>>5925620
>ctrl+f
>Hyperion
>4 results
Hyperion

[Anonymous No.5929459]

>>5927163
High Rise is social sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.5929505]

A Canticle for Leibowitz anyone?

[Anonymous No.5930441]

If you say otherwise you are a tryhard

[Anonymous No.5930468]

Wolfe
Crowley
Ballard
Dick
Delany
Le Guin
Bester
Gibson
Mieville
Zelazny
Butler
Stephenson
Atwood

[Anonymous No.5930740]

I vaguely remember someone mentioning a book that was about how the government tested possible polio vaccines on people which resulted in the creation of HIV. Or anything at all the might be credible?

[Anonymous No.5930836]

>>5925575
Greek literature? More like geek literature

[Anonymous No.5930958]

>>5925575
>I didn't want to become like one of those teen Asimov's fans who jerks off on star trek

Those teen Asimov fans all think Trek and wars are Plebshit.

[Anonymous No.5931069]

Starship Troopers
The City and the Stars

[Anonymous No.5932462]

The Stars My Destination

It's fun, has a good ending, and I don't really like sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.5934667]

Contact and Cosmos. BasedSagan4lyfe.

[Anonymous No.5934679]

one of my goals in 2015 is to read a sci-fi novel and not some bland shit that can pass as "literary" like heinlein or bradubury or whatever but like some pulpy ass genre shit, but good puply ass genre shit, i'm thinking diaspora by ega

[Anonymous No.5934686]

>>5934679
I recommend this one.

[Anonymous No.5934689]

>>5934679
Just read a bunch of Phil K. Dick.

[Anonymous No.5934691]

>>5925406
Novel? Uh.... Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand I guess?

[Anonymous No.5934696]

>>5925406
I highly recommend A.E. van Vogt's Null-A books; they're great fun, well-written and intelligent.

[Anonymous No.5934699]

>>5934679
If you want some classic-ass shit, I would recommend AE Van Vogt or EE 'Doc' Smith. For more modern shit uhhhhh... anything published by Baen Books really

[Anonymous No.5934711]

>>5934696
Np. They're not intelligent. They are stupid as fuck and they make no sense at all. Van Vogt was a maniac and a very poor writer. I've honestly never read anything like The World of Null-A and I don't mean that as a compliment. It is like a dream that someone had about science fiction and then wrote down. That's how much logic it has.

[Anonymous No.5934733]

>>5934711
Have you by chance read Science and Sanity, by Alfred Korzybski? It's the seminal book in a field of study called General Semantics, and Van Vogt's books segue into that. Actually, there are a few Golden Age authors who became obsessed w/ Non-Aristotelianism, but I like Van Vogt's stuff best. The point I'm making is, the Null-A books actually ARE brilliant, but I can see that slipping past someone unaware of the subtext. I recommend you give them a second chance, Anon, if you feel like it.

[Anonymous No.5934747]

>>5934733
I am familiar with it in broad strokes but not in depth. But enough to feel fairly confident that Van Vogt's work is barely readable from any literary point of view.

[Anonymous No.5934762]

>>5934747
I dunno, I got a lot out of it. Maybe it was my age or something. I was a teenager and I read Wm. Burroughs enthusing over Korzybski in The Job, and eventually that led me to Van Vogt. In my opinion it reads a little bit like if P.K. Dick tried his hand at a space opera - I thought it was pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.5935044]

>>5934711
Fucking this. I found it in a collection of books my dad left, and tried reading it because I wanted to finish them all.

I don't know why I didn't drop that piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.5935083]

>>5926135
permutation city is god-tier. literally just finished it four days ago and loved every chapter. autoverse gave me a total tech-gasm

[Anonymous No.5935095]

I've been binging sci-fi HARD this past month, and am currently reading the short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others (It's great btw). I've gotten all my recommendations from this website: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/PhilosophicalSF.htm

The compiler of the list gathered recommendations of “philosophically interesting” science fiction from thirty-four professional philosophers and from two prominent SF authors with graduate training in philosophy. Each contributor recommended ten works of speculative fiction and wrote a brief “pitch” gesturing toward the interest of the work. The blurbs are fantastic and I highly recommend it to you guys.

For me, science fiction is all about the exploration of of interesting ideas: novelizing thought experiments. If you enjoy that kind of thing definitely check this list out.

[Anonymous No.5935106]

>>5935095
holy fuck this is the real deal
thanks for the recs m8

[Sus No.5936313]

Arthur C. Clarke
Isaac Asimov
Philip K Dick
Dan Simmons
Frederick Pohl
Frank Herbert

[Anonymous No.5936559]

>>5926135
I kind of liked it but it's a very very bad written book.

The main character is basically a projection of the author and has no progression at all, starts sarcastic and optimistic and ends like that, after two years stranded on the planet.
The premise (most of the story is told as diary entries on a video blog) takes away a great part of the tension.
When the book cuts to mission control, suddenly the most cliched characters appear with some of the worst dialog I've ever read.

TL;DR good hard sci-fi story, bad written book

[Anonymous No.5936642]

No love for Iain M. Banks?

[Anonymous No.5936686]

>>5936642
The other sci-fi thread has people mastubatng over use of weapons.

[Anonymous No.5936734]

>>5925557
>Book of the New Sun
>Lord of Light

10/10 taste. These are so underrated...

[Anonymous No.5936742]

>>5936686

sounds like that's the place for me

[Anonymous No.5936747]

>>5925406
rama is one of my favorites

[Sus No.5937053]

Avoid Bova, Baxter, and Reynolds if you liked Rama and hard scifi generally.

[Anonymous No.5937389]

>>5937053
Why?

[Sus No.5938335]

>>5937389
Mostly rehashed tropes. Standing in the shadows of giants like Asimov, Clarke, Pohl, Dick, etc.

[Anonymous No.5938509]

>>5935095
I actually have a copy of that collection that my old neighbor gave me when i was younger and they were moving out of the neighborhood. I think he also gave me The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and stuff too and I'm just realizing he was pretty cool maybe a decade later.

Will check it out when I'm done reading VALIS. Also, while we're on the topic, I've read like 4 or 5 PKD's in a row and want something in a similar vein but not by him. Does anyone know if Thomas Disch is any good? PKD name drops him in VALIS and he apparently wrote the original novel of The Brave Little Toaster. Could be interesting.

[Anonymous No.5938859]

>>5937053
>Reynolds
>Bad
Okay.

[Anonymous No.5938870]

>>5938335
Nah Reynolds is fine

[Anonymous No.5938873]

>>5938509
Thomas Disch fucking owns. Strongly recommend anything by him. Camp Concentration is amazing

[Anonymous No.5938878]

>>5937053
Bova is fine too. I mean he's not Clark, but he's not BAD.

[Anonymous No.5938886]

>>5925517

i'm in no way a scifi buff but i loved this book, definitely my favorite scifi novel

[Anonymous No.5938899]

>>5925517
Count Zero is a much better novel. It dosn't get as much attention because it didn't start the genre. But it's much more complex and has actual characters.

[Anonymous No.5938902]

>>5926211

i would probably switch sci fi readers and "hardcore gamers". being really into video games is pretty mainstream these days

[Anonymous No.5940638]

What's the best space opera? Or just anything on a large scale.

[Anonymous No.5941093]

>>5938873
>Rendezvous with Rama
So is Camp Concentration the best starting point? I'll add it to my list. I think I'll check out Le Guin because of that list that was posted. Left Hand of Darkness sounds right up my alley.

[Anonymous No.5941117]

>>5941093
Woops, didn't mean to greentext Rama... Was just googling it.

[Anonymous No.5941186]

>>5940638

Revelation Space series is pretty good for that

[Anonymous No.5941190]

>>5938873
>>5941093
Counterpoint: Camp Concentration is terrible, Disch isn't a strong enough writer to put the premise into practice, and wraps things up with a stupid and unsatisfying reveal.

[Anonymous No.5941250]

My absolute favourite is His Master's Voice by Lem.

A guy who I don't think gets enough love on /lit/ is Vernor Vinge. Both A Deepness In The Sky and A Fire Upon The Deep are excellent, and have the best non-human characters / societies I've read.

[Anonymous No.5941420]

>>5941250
>A Fire Upon The Deep

This has cropped up a few times while looking at sci-fi recommendations so I think I'll have to get it.

[Anonymous No.5942445]

>>5926152
>>5929505
>>5934699
I like you.

A few of mine:
5th Head of Cerberus (Wolfe)
The Last Castle (Vance)
Canticle (Miller)

[Anonymous No.5942469]

>>5926181
My problems with sci fi films these days is they're written for a completely different audience, especially the AI ones

people who read sci fi are fascinated with the ontological facets of consciousness, human solipsism and dimensions of intelligence that are alien to us.

anything hollywood makes almost by default appeals to the "human side" in robots as if humanity is some universal quality. it's disgustingly arrogant

[Anonymous No.5942486]

The concept of a neurolinguistic virus had so much potential but I felt like stephenson did so much handwaving it left me disappointed.


it's one of his earlier works though, are Cryptonomicon and Diamond age more technically rigorous in this rigard?

[Anonymous No.5942800]

So do we all agree that Philip k dick is one of the best?

[Anonymous No.5942824]

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

[Anonymous No.5942825]

Are there any diamond hard sci fi books written by autistic savants for other autists?

[Anonymous No.5942829]

>>5942825

foundation series nigga

Asimov was in mensa

[Anonymous No.5942842]

>>5942469
I've realized it's probably impossible for Hollywood to make a Sci-fi movie these days. The current culture is actively technophobic and wants to make a story that will appeal to as many people as possible while offending nobody. Anything that might be thought provoking or futuristic will be shot down.

Holywood's idea of the future is to take the present, and then either cover everything in chrome (implying an optimistic future), or a layer of grit. (implying a dystopia)
Similarly holywood's idea of the past is to take the present and give everyone British accents and funny costumes, then film on location somewhere exotic (with all white actors). There is no interest in portraying a distinctly fantastic world.

[Anonymous No.5942848]

>>5942842
People want to feel warm and fuzzy inside after a film. They want anodyne films that reinforce their world view. Hollywood can never make 1984 without some brave soul toppling Big Brother. Brave New World is an even bigger challenge because part of it posits that there's nothing really wrong at all.

[Anonymous No.5942881]

>>5942842
Hollywood scifi writers look down on the autists who enjoy scifi with disdain. Pursuit of knowledge is inherently inferior to the pursuit of love in their eyes. Curiosity is a base emotion to them. Everything they write stems from that principle. Details are only a backdrop for the more important stuff.

[Anonymous No.5942915]

>>5942881
I'm sure there are a lot of nerds who would love to write serious Sci-fi. But They get over-written by producers who want a paint by numbers hero's journey for the widest audience possible.

[Anonymous No.5942918]

>>5942825
Just read a textbook.

[Anonymous No.5942942]

>>5942915
Rendezvous with Rama is in development hell right now.

Can something like that still be made nowadays, with a decent budget, and unchanged to appeal to the masses, and still receive critical praise? Look what happened to Interstellar.

2001 was only made because Kubrick was a big time auteur who happened to appreciate sci fi. And it was only praised due to its technical brilliance.

[Anonymous No.5942944]

>>5942942
Interstellar sucked though. It was better than gravity. But it was still pretty shit, both as a movie and as Sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.5942946]

>>5927639
Not him, but what other books would you recommend by the Strugatsky brothers?

[Anonymous No.5942950]

>>5942944
I havent seen it yet due to the no singles policy

Is it as good as Gattaca? Or the first 4/5th of Sunshine?

[Anonymous No.5942958]

>>5942950
Worse. It's full of plot holes, shallow platitudes, and clumsy Hollywood "Drama."

You could make a drinking game based on how often they recite "Do not go gentle into that good night."

[Anonymous No.5942970]

Any good short story anthologies?

[Anonymous No.5942994]

>>5942950
worth seeing for visual aspect alone

[Anonymous No.5943604]

What's the title of that novel/story about a kid who is visited by aliens, and the aliens like him so much that they decide not to invade the earth until the kid dies, making the kid the most important person alive?

[Anonymous No.5944126]

>>5943604
I hope someone knows this because that sounds interesting as fuck.

[Anonymous No.5944142]

>>5943604
mars needs moms

[Anonymous No.5945095]

>>5943604
bump for interest

[Anonymous No.5945672]

I kinda agree with OP's two. But I don't really read sci-fi anymore. Present long time ago ahead of these books. I read some Bradbury for his tone, Clarke for his visions.